Digital Twin of Life
BIM is the management of information through the whole life cycle of a built asset, from initial design all the way through to construction, maintaining and finally de-commissioning, through the use of digital modelling.
The UK government recognized that the process of moving the construction industry to ‘full’ collaborative working will be progressive, with distinct and recognizable milestones being defined within that process, in the form of ‘levels’.
While the construction industry is one of the main drivers of the overall economy, it faces a number of challenges related to competitiveness, labor shortage, resource efficiency and particularly productivity, among others. Indeed, labor productivity has increased by about a quarter of the rate in the manufacturing sector over the past two decades.
Sustainability and BIM have a strong synergy that is embraced by both the professional and educational communities. For example, there are efforts to use advanced modeling and simulation technology by involving stakeholders for energy savings in capital projects in the United States
. According to the National Institute of Building Science, building information modeling (BIM) is “a digital representation of the physical and functional properties of a facility. BIM is a shared source of information for information about a facility that provides a reliable basis for decisions throughout its life cycle; it has been defined as existing from the earliest concept to destruction ”.